Review by C.J. Bunce
A story’s beginning has rarely been done better. In Mystery Road: Origin, the mannerisms, attitude, and determination of a quiet and stoic Aboriginal Australian police officer are explained by returning to his past. The result is six episodes of a prequel series that surpasses its predecessor series and movies. The success was underscored in its home country by top acting awards for its two leads, recast from the actors that made the roles famous. The outstanding Mark Coles Smith takes on the role of rookie detective Jay Swan, returning to his hometown as its first Black cop where he meets his future wife Mary, played by Tuuli Narkle.
Let’s take a look at the first season of the series that took best drama, best direction, and best cinematography in Australia before it returns for a second season later this year.
Previously at borg I reviewed the 2013 movie Mystery Road and a 2018 two-season series of the same title, a distinctly modern Western series about Outback indigenous Detective Jay Swan, played by Aaron Pedersen (The Gloaming), which co-starred in the series twice Oscar-nominated actor Judy Davis (A Passage to India, Ratched, Impromptu). I likened Pedersen’s Swan to Gary Cooper in High Noon. The new prequel series cinches Swan as another loner hero like we’ve seen played by Steve McQueen in Bullitt, by Clint Eastwood in countless roles, and probably even more on point by fellow Aussie Robert Taylor as Craig Johnson’s Sheriff Walt Longmire in the Longmire TV series.
It’s Mark Coles Smith that sells that stoic hero, and the concept of squeezing a few more years out of this character. It’s his flaws that define him. He is too much of a loner. He is too committed to justice–to the point it almost costs him his future family. His singular attitude causes him to be ostracized by his community, including the small police force that tepidly welcomes him. Is it possible he is somewhere on the spectrum? In 1999, where the story takes place, it’s not even a glint of an idea. Maybe it’s being raised by a rodeo hero father in a community of embedded racism that forged who he is, the insular upbringing that stifled opportunity, ideas, and for him even more prominently, expression. Most around him would seem to admit it’s a miracle he arrived as a town leader, to return in this kind of role.
It’s the whole analysis of what it means to be Black in Australia that makes this a cutting edge drama, quietly and slowly building with a simplicity that lays out realities those outside the Continent have probably never seen. This stark desert. The broken down town. The broken down people. It all paints a picture of a time not long ago that may not be changed much today. With all the desert cinematography and Jay looking on solemnly, you might wonder if some of the angles are borrowing from George Lucas’s frames of Luke Skywalker in Star Wars. But that might be because Lucas borrowed from John Ford shots in The Searchers.
But Mark Coles Smith doesn’t do it alone. Equal as a star of this series is Tuuli Narkle (NCIS: Sydney) as Mary, who viewers of the earlier series know as the woman who will become his wife and later his estranged wife. It’s that sorrowful future that packs a double wallop as we meet this sweet, caring nurse who takes responsibility for a crumbling family beaten down by disease and crime. She cares for her dying mother, played by Aboriginal actress Lisa Flanagan. She cares for her troubled brother, played by Jayden Popik, and his toddler daughter. When she meets Jay Swan he’s a distraction from everything else, even if the story of her family is intertwined in the show’s murder mystery Jay is attempting to solve.
Jay’s boss, played by Steve Bisley (Mad Max), is a crotchety sort who blurs the line between appropriate handling of a Black employee. But Jay’s co-worker Max is a character unlike anything you’ve seen before. Played by Hayley McElhinney, she clearly disapproves of having Jay on the force, especially as a senior cop on the case. She is also ferociously good at being a cop, even when that means straddling the line between minor abuses she once got away with, and doing the right thing when it really counts. You can tell someone on the writing staff created her as a young version of the cop Judy Davis later plays in the series. Maybe that’s just the grit of a tough Aussie woman? If you want someone on your side, this badass cop named Max, even despite her imperfections and all-out poor attributes, might make your list.
In any other British mystery series, the resolution of the mystery would seem overly complicated. But here the writers are careful to get it right. The pace of the direction makes it all come together.
Is there a single bad guy at the end, or is everyone complicit? Other supporting actors help expand the story, its threads and red herrings. In the badass women category, along with Mary and Max, a public defender named Anousha (played by Salme Geransar) is a force in the town. Her very presence along with that of Grace Chow as police officer Cindy, illustrates the international flavor of this tiny speck of a town in the Outback. Then there’s Ziggy, played by Aboriginal actress Megan Wilding, a confidante of Jay’s dad who could have had a different life if she were anywhere else. Adding another layer of color and digging into Jay’s personal side is his brother Sputty, an intriguing sort completely unlike Jay, played by Aboriginal actor Clarence Ryan. And then there’s the dog Buddy, who has a big enough of a role he gets his own credit (that’s Western the dog).
It’s a shame it took a few years to get to regular programming in the States, as the first season of Mystery Road: Origin is a great Western and a great mystery. Not many Westerns double as a crime thriller like this and this would have challenged the top TV series here in 2022. Not many thrillers handle marginalized peoples’ struggles, corruption, and community so well. Mystery Road has done it over three seasons, and a fourth is on its way later this year. For fans of the Western genre and Australia and a good mystery, Mystery Road: Origin is streaming now on Acorn TV and AMC+ via Prime Video.
